Kruger 300 - Day 12 [Cheetah - a view to a kill]

A common - & a keep

We’ve arrived in the very-far north & with it completed our pursuit for 300 species; that’s 300 bird species, seen - done & dusted. Not bad for 12 days; the next fortnight will record how many more. We’re currently on 304 sp. & will spend the next 2 nights flogging the remnant sand forests & the Pafuri region before we return to the central regions for some R&R i.e.: the big cats. The highlight off a list of many was the Egyptian Vulture – an unlikely, timely – fortuitous twitch if ever ‘lucky’ meant more than fluke. In the 300 our nominated candidate for ‘dip-to-date’ i.e.: not seen – is the ubiquitous Spotted Eagle Owl… a commoner on the keep.

The little bits & pieces make Kruger special

Some days the blog writes itself. This is one of those days. We’d left a little later than usual - & on that point I have a theory. In the silly season the race-to-be 1^st – out the gate / at a sighting often leads to gear-grinding & a leaden foot – neither activity conducive to ‘game-viewing’. The game-to-be-viewed are equally contemptuous & allow the race to pass before taking to the field themselves. Go out ½ hour later & voila – you get to play with the big boys. Yesterday a leopard at 12 paces from the gate – today, 2 hunting cheetahs; further afield [most of the early-birds flew past].

Soon - gone

Here’s how the saga wrote itself in the sands: … on the left of the road a small family of wildebeest – one small calf. On the road & just off the road, on the right, a coalition of cheetah. We held the middle ground. Behind us – our trailer [forgotten at the time]. Two other vehicles were on-site – one before us / one after. At the time, drizzle – the pre-cursor for what turned out to be a jackets & jersey day; hot chocolate too. Yesterday the thermometer touched 42° C [only in Africa…].

For the 1^st few minutes we looked at them / they looked at us – the wildebeest frolicked in the clean & fresh. Few paid the antelope much attention – the cheetah holding the table.

The odds? - a calculation

… and then, raised ears; a quick sum of the odds & a hasty crossing over to the other side. Both groups of fated prey & predator held similar ground; a debate & a reckoning was on the cards. Fate had sealed the dice - & the die was cast.

The 1^st cat held low – the 2^nd [two or three paces behind] gained traction in the cloying mud – stretched a long limb & covered the 100 paces to the wildebeest calf in less time than it took to write this sentence. Dust broiled – death bellowed - & the adults set about the two cats; snorting, biting- kicking even. Horns flashed in the mist. One cheetah grabbed the hapless waif – swung it off its feet like so many bags of beans & applied a toothy-tourniquet to the youngster’s throat.

On your marks...

The other baited the rest of the herd – loud chirpee, chirupee cheaps – like an emergent duckling / comical really given the gravity of the situation - bloody frightening as it turned out… the wildebeest adults gave ground; milling & snorting. In the interim the dust had settled & the waif was gone. From start to food – 5 or 6 minutes. From the starter’s gun to the take-down – 4 seconds. The cats fed at length & we left them to their breakfast some time later. Whilst they ate – almost farcically – the living herd grazed / relaxed & lay down perhaps 40 meters away from the feeding cats – they might even have been closer. Fearless or an inherent & necessary survival characteristic? Shrinks are few & far between in the African bush…

Never fun to watch - I said 'RUN!' - don't know for whom

Between the start of the chase & the strike on the gnu, my alter idiot, unaccustomed to more than a day or two of quiet, slammed the car into reverse – gunned the engine & let fly / all eyes on the chase. The ensuing jack-knife came as a complete surprise to me – the crunch & broken glass equally uninvited / unexpected. 

The damage is, as my broker will say; – shocking, extensive / expensive & damn stupid!

Even so – we numpties laugh in the face of pecuniary normalcy! Was the post-crunch angst worth the reward? Every cent & hard-earned penny!  

Nylsvley's pullin' chicks

The Vic Falls wheatear [Pied - n-br], given the paucity of records, is our latest blocker & an unwelcome addition to an elastic list of self-injury. Co-celebrating the 93^rd birthday of Zimbabwe's Chief of Graft, Asia's vagrants & vagabonds were clearly in attendance; early party-pooping notwithstanding. We declined the temptation & made the decision not to go. Local twitchers & listers traveled north. Kudos. Commiserations to the late Saturday / Sunday crew. The joy is in the anticipation & the chase ...

'....a tragic & elastic list of self-injury.'

To be fair we've seen Pied Wheatear elsewhere in the world. It's an indulgence; a concession to our shrinking, global village & a malaise of complacency that sets off warning-bells. The mirror knows... In local news a creche of Striped Crake dominated domestic, social headlines. It's life at the end of the seasonal rainbow. Good news & testimony to patience, birding's true reward.

Dinner-time

Lunchtime

Tea-time

As for us we headed north to the Limpopo province's Nylsvley [Nylsvlei..] Nature Reserve for some storm-chasing of our own. The weather wasn't great for tennis but who plays tennis on purpose anyway? Avian specials included, inter alia: - Corn, Spotted & African Crake, Lesser Moorhen, Thrush Nightingale, Dwarf Bittern [br.], Rufous-bellied Heron, African Grass Owl & White-backed Vulture. That's a haul to titillate the records even if the flooding on the plain is only at 70%. The extent of the inundation is rain-dependent & this year's water came too late for the truly bizarre but who needs vagrancy when the floodplain's at full-employment?

Dinonyane Lodge - under new management

We spent Saturday night at a revamped Dinonyane Lodge. Under New Management & the supervision of new owner Eddie, this is the ONLY accommodation in the area we consistently endorse. An enlarged dam is a new addition to the facility and promises to be a beacon for local residents. Self-catered accommodation in the Nylsvley Reserve itself, for the contrarians that is, is clean and well-serviced. Guests staying in the reserve are limited to the gate opening / closing times and for those of you who don't know, Nylsvley's more iconic birding is accessed outside the reserve, at Vogelfontein. Gate times aren't always premised on a birder's best interests...

We spent an obligatory hour or two inside the 4000 ha reserve, an IBA and RAMSAR site, and partial protection [most of the floodplain is privately owned] for one of South Africa's largest ephemeral floodplains. Vogelfontein, accessed from outside the reserve, demanded the rest of our time. The bits & bobs of the floodplain accessed from within the reserve, was mostly unproductive. Bushveld birding elsewhere, however, was bold, brash & loud. Perversely a semi-flooded / partially-inundated floodplain racks up a larger list than a wet year would allow - habitat diversity rather than the extent of the inundation, key. Lesser-spotted Eagle, African Hawk Eagle, Cape & White-backed Vulture, Olive-tree Warbler & Purple Indigobird were the stand-outs on a longer list of others. A mixed flock of Black-winged Pratincole, Yellow-billed Kite, White Stork & Lesser Spotted Eagle rivaled the more internationally acclaimed #vismig fall-out spectacles, if only in number. If more-trumps-variety, then this annual, South African, phenomenon is grossly under-reported.

 '...  rivaled any acclaimed #vismig fall-out in number..'   

Vogelfontein lived up to expectations with one exception; the 'exception' this month's nominee for bogey-bird-of-the-year. Allen's Gallinule, a not uncommon visitor to Southern Africa's ephemeral pans & ponds, continues to elude - a duck & dive routine that turns the mind to chicken; roast chicken...

If you look up at the night-sky, on a dark night, away from the distractions of tungsten light & other man-made folly, are the stars not the building-blocks of dreams? Nothing is certain. The best & brightest demand attention & we're drawn to them. Good glass serves-up more, much more. On brighter nights the ordinary, more plentiful balls of gas & rock fade or vanish. The brightest shine-on but it's less, not more. Birding's the same. Whilst we chase the stars it's the more common, less fanciful birds that paint the canvas. Vogelfontein is such a place. On the commons & in the seasonal inundation we know they're there; the common, homespun many; a supporting cast of white-noise that lends the ordinary; an ordinary that highlights the special. Wax on..

"... we know they're there; the common, homespun many; a supporting cast of white-noise that lends the ordinary; an ordinary that highlights the special."

African Crake - Crex egregia

Then again it's the specials that make the common ordinary & who dreams of ordinary? Vogelfontein draws them in & this is our story.

In the previous post [See here] we put a positive spin on the lunar cycle & the effervescent effects a full moon has on birds. It gets them up and dancing. PG-rated stuff. This week was a different kinda flicks & chicks - the family kind. The weather played a role - & I have the empirical observation to stake the claim.

Dwarf Bittern - styling..

On Saturday the sun broke through the rain, during brief windows, at least twice (2x). An all-sorts cast forgot the cloak & dagger farm and took to the open to towel-off. The bedraggled ensemble included Spotted, Corn & African Crake. More than a handful of the older folk dried-off the kids; shivering bundles of ooh & ah. Dwarf Bittern chicks boasted spiked hair. Lesser Moorhen clucked a series of notes in a haphazard sort of way but for all the world to see. African Grass Owl preferred an early evening drip-dry in the blower; the crepuscular gust a spin-off of the storm that was.

African Crake - to be continued..

During the sun-downer interlude a Rufous-bellied Heron buzzed the field, close-by, overhead. It's difficult to focus the glass, eat a good biscuit, make yourself heard & drink G & Tea when these gifts come wrapped for the taking. Those are not hands-free applications.

Elsewhere the same wet weather grounded the clean-up crew. In and among the Cape committee - one or two White-backed Vultures; another regional 'are-you-sure?'. Yes - thank you for asking.

On Sunday the course was dry, the puddles had drained and the game was different. Rain was forecast but fell in spits & spats only. A 'pair' of Thrush Nightingale suggested we cross-over to the other side & scale the 12-ft. fence; the fence the intermediary at our discussion & a sturdy symbol of neighbourly trust. We'd omitted to pack our lawyer & declined the invitation. It's the ring of their eyes and not the white of their eyes we'll remember. Fair enough.

'... & scale the 12-ft. fence, .... a sturdy symbol of neighbourly trust.'


Exclude the Nightingale, a hobby and an inundated-grassland-gliding Boomslang [the antithesis of tree-snake & an insult to its mamma] & the remainder of the Sunday session had us well-grounded, back in the commons & at the table of home-cooked fare; tasty, super-sized servings but perennially under-seasoned & uneventful. Nothing else showed.

So there you have it. Dreams are the playthings of storms, steam-dried in the baleful sun and matured under the full moon on a cloudless night. It's a fact & I can prove it.

Birds dance in the moonlight

Existential threats to our integrity is the imbroglio of our crowd-sourced hobby. ID confirmation is often didactic in tone. We're a capricious, eclectic community & yet no community is served when only the elite have control. Too many birders are silenced by the embarrassment of being wrong or having to defend a sighting. It's a shame. Those who think birding is binary and a consequence of criteria satisfied, miss out on the grey. Grey is where mystery, humanity, complexity and truth reside. The path to infinite possibility sways & vibrates in the hot air of the whispering medusa. Ulterior motive is disingenuous & prevarication. I'm not interested.

Whilst we're happy to assist with age determination and sequential moult in raptors,  I want to talk about the moon. 

On the 11^th of February 2017 Alisha & I returned from a foray to one of the North West reserves via the village of Kgomo Kgomo and Zaagkuilsdrift. This iconic, non-directional, 25 km drive, on a public road, is steeped in local birding folklore and for good reason. By day birders are exposed to habitat diversity that lends a three-figure summer list. Winter's not bad either sans the wet-weather migrants. Birding at night can be equally spectacular. However, for birders targeting specific species, timing is key.

''.. for birders targeting specific species, timing is key.''

River Warbler (Locustella fluviatilis)

In the west seasonal rains inundate grassland. This ephemeral floodplain attracts every dervish of vlei, rush & reed. Further east the bushveld habitat lends itself to an array of resident & migratory species. These make up the numbers but can also be frustrating & just as elusive as many will attest.

Getting to the preferred habitat, for a targeted species, takes some planning. We'd arrived on the route's western floodplain just after sunset with the intention of trying for Striped Crake; a dastardly species to see & a denizen of inundated grassland. We'd heard an individual call the week before and returned for a more determined push. [Listen here]

A little after 8:45 pm the birds showed. We were lucky, as some have argued and that's true, mostly. However, we also spent a barefoot hour in leech-infested water at levels not too far below the belt. The mosquitoes took care of skin above the waterline; the ensuing free-for-all an old-fashioned bloodletting and a scratch for a different time. Moments before our high-kneed cha-cha, an unfortunate sideshow as we removed the tenants from our shorts, we'd watched one of two birds, in touching distance, submerge into the murk to escape further detection. A clever arrow in what is already an elusive quiver of magic, mystery & masterful-trickery. Unforgettable!    

" .. a clever arrow in what is already an elusive quiver of magic, mystery & masterful-trickery." 

The field-guides & one or two special, local 'luminaries', however, claimed something different; ' .. inactivity at roost & a stillness at night...' or something along those lines. Not true I'm afraid. Although the bird called the following afternoon, I'm told no-one else was lucky enough to see the crake. Why? This is where it gets interesting.

On the 11^th of February a full moon rose at approximately 19:17 local time. This is important. Peer-reviewed research shows that lunar phases affect the behaviour of insects, mammals and birds. Don't scoff; I'm not barking ... Recently published material on pelagic seabirds confirms an increase in seabird activity with moonlight. The activity was not only limited to the acquisition of food but was also a consequence of heightened predator avoidance; the predators themselves equally hyped on the lunar-cycle. In a similar study researchers found the lunar cycle affected hormone levels ... [in birds]

Kurrichane Buttonquail [Turnix sylvaticus]

On our return home, much later, the route was festooned with nocturnal birds either on the road itself or on structure nearby. Most were in easy spin, calling boundaries & setting limits.

European, Fiery-necked and Rufous-cheeked Nightjars were a nuisance in the headlights. Coursers were bold. Common [Kurrichane] Buttonquail were brash in the moonlight and owls & owlets perched on fences, poles and shrubs in impressive numbers. Southern White-faced Owl exceeded the fingers on two hands in number. A pair of Verreaux's Eagle-Owl generated a full-out-of-range form on the South African Bird Atlas Project. Remarkable. Even so, as an aside, that's difficult to credit given how many times we've seen them there before... Anyhoo.

".. Southern White-faced Owl exceeded the fingers on two hands in number."

Providence aside why'd we see the crake? We were the first responders on the scene. That helps. Yes we were quiet, patient and determined. Doesn't hurt. The ephemeral, inundated  grassland & it's temporary pond boasted a sound food source, ideal cover and was within earshot of the road. Convenient. We'd heard the female calling the week before - our timing, a week later, intentional and planned for. The pond itself was at the edge of drier grassland; not usually the preferred habitat of this species. The birds were confined to a relatively small area as a consequence; much more difficult for the birds to avoid a confrontation. Even a clumsy effort would have a more than even chance of success. The odds, therefore, were clearly in our favour. The same favourable odds, however, were applicable next day but the birds failed to show. Why? What was the x-factor?

The lunar cycle...

"What was the x-factor?"

www.mycalendartemplate.com

We'd arrived on site between 19:30 and 19:45. A full moon had risen moments before at 19:17. The birds showed at 20:45 [approx.] or 90 minutes after moonrise.

On average the moon takes 24 hours and 49 minutes to cross the sky. The stars, in turn, go once around the sky in 23 hours and 56 minutes (approx.) ie: 1 day. As a result the moon rises and sets 53 minutes later each day for one sidereal period of revolution or 27 days (approx.). For those of you who respect the sea this also accounts for the change in tides. Each high and low tide is 53 minutes later than the day before.

Like a bolt of lightening the bush had burst into life. The trees hummed with a supernatural-like energy; an energy we understand but are too embarrassed to concede in public.

Alisha & I had unwittingly stumbled into the surreal; something extraordinary. We tend to blunder into life's lessons. This is a connection beyond gravity & simple physics. The formula is encoded in our DNA. It's a life-force we've suppressed over generations of prim & proper; a shock therapy of good behaviour that keeps the spirit of our species off the dance floor. Deviance is legislated "weird" or punished in stocks or at the stake. Out there though, in the inundated grass, life's much more simple.

"We tend to blunder into life's lessons."

Why'd we see the crake? "Sequential polyandry... !" Blah-di-flappin'-blah.. Astonishingly naive & a passionless, ardour dampener in two dorky, lifeless words. Leave it to the beige people to squeeze the joy outta life.

In a world where females call the shots, hot-blooded males pay attention. When the moon dances a twinkle in an upturned eye - the girls come out to play..



I'll leave you with this -

www.my2018calendar.com

What you do on Sunday, the 12^th day of March, is your business. Me? I'm paying attention. 

Finders, keepers

I bang on about bad form & our veni, vidi, vici wits, the cuckoos of the domestic birding fraternity. Social media adds spice [or salt] to that platform but that's a laugh for another time. I do, however, want to spend a few words on the field-technicians who consistently root out vagrants; those selfless, tireless men & women who walk the hard-stare & who generously / timeously share their spoils with the rest of the great unwashed. (ie: us).

Before I do, however, some bits & pieces. Defined by a colouful kaleidoscope of characters, the birding community notes a few pseudo-character sub-categories. These lie somewhere between the sparrows & the eagles & are fun, fun, fun. My favourite is the self-proclaimed, get-along gang. These mystics emerge from their chrysalises of inactivity whenever a rarity is reported. They retire immediately after the feed & aren't seen again until the next hit. Hooked up to the info-channels like half-life junkies on life-support, they wait, unmoved. They are, on the whole, however, a colourful clique of fieldwork expats & usually worth the price of a pint @ story-time. As a rule, however, leave the party early & avoid the 'remember when I... ' soliloquies. It's easier on the wallet.


An emerging, more subtle group, is incipient within the frat. It's stealth-camo for self-interest. Like flight control they exercise exclusive ascendancy over the news; offer group rates on sponsored travel; cherry-pick, ... the cherries (what else, duh?) & 'confirm the ID... ', in person, before opening the gates to the rabid rabble, on the outside. It's no secret. These candidate-agents tap the web for flow & we love them for it.

Less tongue-in-cheek & at it's heart, however, beats the lifeblood of the community. Unspoiled, unpretentious & modest. Gentle men & women, unheralded, passionate, knowledgeable & honest. Too many to name; inspiring people all & therein lies the colour.

I want to reference a few specific individuals, perhaps more indirectly than I'd like. I'm going to exclude the rarity-stumblers ie: those fortunate enough to chance-upon a mega / giga / (tera) [ie: a hitherto 'extinct' sp. rediscovered - not really but it sounds cool anyway]. Those are yarns for another time.

The stars of the region's compass include some special field-pros. In the east, far east, gulls, stints, pelagics and other passer. goodies. In Namibia's west, terns, waders, skimmers & gulls. Another field-pro. In that country's far north, a bare-footed other. Further east, one more sharp-tailed pro. In the south, far south west, a new crop of youngsters - snow-white fresh but fluent in the field. In South Africa's east an understated few. Up here a handful; consistent, dedicated and hard to beat. There are others scattered around the sub-region equally watchful in weather's heat & sleet. Thank you. This year's been a cracker.

A thorn, it's said, makes the rose or a rose it wouldn't be; neither does a prick-or-two ruin the garden. Keep the field close & your dearest ones closer still. Be safe; be vigilant - be cool. Wishing you all a peaceful, prosperous & fulfilling New Year. May your lists get fat & your bins grow sharper.

We're going fishing. (it's easier)

Get-off 869: - Northern Wheatear

A wheatear [©FraukeFeind] - not THE wheatear

For at least a fortnight the Oenanthe² [ie: a Northern Wheatear, in the street vernacular] languished in peace & quiet. This particular Old World Flycatcher had held court on the derriere of its normal range, flitting, strutting & otherwise going 'bout its business near the Kruger National Park's Vervoer [Transport] Dam.

Two weeks on a private tour to darkest Africa - in seasonal rain, wind, some grit in its eye & under the watch of the grim reaper, this bird's sensitivities were never more at ease. Lions lurked; leopards leaped; crocodilians crunched & falcons frolicked. Ah yes; them carefree summers - 'Hakuna Matata, watta a wonderful phrase.. '

Now I lay me down to sleep - pray protect me from them peeps

Publicly announced some two weeks after the twinkle in its eye 1^st graced an African lens; & still on the keep the day after the Eye of Sauron swiveled eastwards; here, at last, a true vagrant to get us off the dreaded 869; an uncomfortable no. to hold still on for long & 1 worse-off than the more titillating 870.

For the progeny-free, carefree, couldn't-care-less-me & the otherwise foot & fancy-free, time plays no role. The rest of us find some common ground between fridge-magnets, bedtime-stories & the boardroom; usually on a weekend. Getting into Kruger at this time of the year is no small feat. Even so, our luck held - the house -booked, paid-for & looked-forward-to. On your marks, list set - hold the sweaty phone! It's FO [flown off, that is].

In betwixt Sunday's bulletin & tomorrow's long-weekend, 5 short days; time a-plenty for any bird to rethink it's sedentary hold on paradise-lost & so it's proved (again & again). Must be the sodding weather - only I'm thinking storm's playback thunder & bolts of flash-lightning arrives in cumulative cars, rather than from cloudy skies. Another dam(n) washout.

Fool's gold at Ithala

1^st call on the sub-region's Golden Pipit [Ithala Game Reserve - KZN, RSA] coincided with our short trip out of town; far out of town. Our reaction was muted .. This then the 3^rd specimen of its tribe to cock-a-snook at us - a two-fingered blocker; a panoply of bad timing & a swift kick to the nutmegs.

Johannesburg is rarely a waypoint for the ave. vagrant; a catch-all for unintended, lost souls on a wonky compass & / or maverick wanderers simply shooting the breeze. Most vagrants prefer somewhere off-the-beaten-track. That means we have to travel, far-afield, almost always.

These wanderers, in turn, are rarely desk-bound & usually offer the briefest of peeps. If life's dice roll the point, a win btw., we join the exodus & catch the bird snake-eyes - caught unawares, dizzy in uncharted woods & rusty on the local dialect. Yes sirree. We're an advanced species, a tag premised on instant porridge; instant coffee & instant soup. Twitching in a can is no less gratifying or instant. Get there a week late, however, and the canned granules are saliva-slippery from the spoons licked before. It's not my cup of tea. We went anyway.

Contrary to the feel-good press birders are a disruptive bunch: - the birds a Distant Tit to the list - a recorded leap of faith pillared on 'I think it was; therefore it must be'. That sentiment is often weak-minded under closer scrutiny; froth & indignation notwithstanding. This escapade proved no different. To end before we start, the bird had flown the keep sometime the day before - an inconvenience really & a calamity of whim, wind or weather. We'll never know.

Initially reported from atop a bush, not much more than a sand-wedge from the Mvunyane (Ntshondwe - wat dat?) Gate & later fairly reliable at the same flag variably throughout the days that followed; we few - we happy, happy few, thought we'd start our pan for gold .. there. We arrived in / under a cloud of mist, a second or two after open, to a confab of banshees, uproarious in volume rather than content. Out-of-the-vehicle shouts of 'the bird's not here', from within the bowels of the very tree still pinking from the bird, the day before, confirmed the loss. The nugget had gone - & wasn't that a helluva shock ... weather notwithstanding? Oblivious to the irony of it all, the travelling circus & its self-appointed ringsmen waxed on about unconfirmed sightings & hearsay post Tuesday, 3 or 4 days earlier. It's a claim the Wed / Thurs mob might find hurtful. The Sunday-morning arrival of Moe & Curly [Larry'd done a duck], in boards & tees, was another breath of hot air but ... I digress.

The bird wasn't there, here or anywhere & so it proved over the next 24 hours for those of us desperate enough to pan the fields. It's not that we didn't try - we did; hand on heart.

Back at the gate the keeper smiled wanly - whacked-out on the 'keep in your vehicle' ashlar. His studied view & I quote - 'they spooked (it) too much. The pipit's gone down - down in (sic) the valley.'

Ithala, a gold mine of riches, grades low, however, on road infrastructure & certainly nothing anywhere near 'into the valley'. As to who 'they' were we'll never know & what does it matter? We'd dipped. Our attempt was flawed, both in theory & out in the field. The grapes had gone sour.

Notwithstanding, we spent the night at Ithala's Ntshondwe Resort; a well-serviced rest-camp nestled high-up against the reserve's southernmost cliffs. The front-deck and the terrace, adjacent the dining area, offer sweeping views over the Ngubhu Basin. Getting to the camp is a pleasant, winding drive, through good habitat, on tarred road. Black & White Rhino are fairly common. We had memorable sightings of both. Other plain's game is equally abundant as are the birds. (We recorded 150+ sp. in our short stay. Specials included Bat Hawk & 2 sp. of crane.) The camp itself is colourful; an artist's palette of forest & montane specials. From the waterhole nearest the front-deck, frogs rise at sundown & chirrup on into the night. Sunset vistas are unsurpassed. Rates include a buffet breakfast & the food's not bad. Dinner is less inspiring but adequate given the locale. Our dinner was supposed to be a self-catered affair. The best-laid plans of mice & men.. Vervet Monkeys gained access to our cottage through a bathroom window no wider than a well-kept secret. The ensuing free-for-all in the kitchen, if the plastered poo & pee is anything to judge these things by, must have been a blast. We were pzzt ...

Anchored by overcooked venison [unforgivable in Africa btw.] & in chairs more comfortable than the situation warranted, we soon got to chewing the fat. Who 'they' were does, in fact, matter & not (only) because we dipped, although, betw. us, it's a bitter pill, but because it's the antithesis of bird-watching as an ethos.

A non-sedentary / migrant / vagrant bird, harassed by birders is mostly free to fly away. The causal loss is limited to an experienced emotion for late-comers to the site. The negative effects on the bird itself are minimal I would guess. A collated sightings report eg: the SARBN, which pinpoints & subsequently concentrates birders at a particular site, has little long-term impact on the effected birds even if the bird is sent packing. The positive spill-over for the participating community, as a whole, outweigh any perceived short-term negative consequences for the bird in question unless, of course, the bird is injured or killed in the melee. I know of no such case. I have, however, seen transgressions that are outrageous, callous, indifferent & often illegal. Trespassing is common. A momentary lapse or an instance of mistaken identity, particularly in low-light conditions, is an accident the community doesn't need. Where birders, responding to a public report, target a resident bird the consequences for the bird are more severe. Well-documented cases of abandonment, stolen eggs etc. are common. I concede the point that people mean well & or are caught-up in the excitement of a sighting but it isn't enough.

Bird-bothering as opposed to birding is an irritation, of course, but not necessarily as severe as the safari hats & boots make it out to be. Amateur photographers, in particular, are targeted as repeat-offenders. Some are more susceptible to acts of bird-bothering. Youth, exuberance, cynicism or the pursuit of a misguided sense-of-belonging are just a few of many social pitfalls.

Looking back at some of the photographs posted on the SARBN, it's fairly obvious the bird-botherers were hanging on its every word. Photographs of flight-shots & those in which the bird was displaying suggest 'they' know who 'they' are. Sure I got there late & the evidence is subjective / circumstantial only but dammit man, have a heart. The bird's supposed to be silent in Southern Africa.